I Am Maru

I must confess, I am a teensy bit jealous of Maru and his massive popularity. Okay, so I don’t make running jumps into boxes and I am more likely to wear a disgruntled face instead of a cute, whimsical one but still, is it fair that my allure only attracts a fraction of the audience numbers Maru has? Now one of the biggest U.S. publishers has released this bilingual, Japanese-English book for Maru’s fans. If you’re one of the hardcore Maru fanatics who has followed his blog for years and watched every one of his videos several times over, the material here won’t be new to you — you know his story and will have seen most of the photos. But if you’ve only caught Maru a few times on icanhascheezburger.com during your coffee break, then you will find out a few things about this feline internet sensation, such as his birthday, kittenhood and even see a floor plan of his domain(!). This is mainly a book for Maru fans (of which there are enough to keep it selling well for quite a while); those few humans who don’t know Maru will find the pictures cute but may be a little confused about why this particular kitty got his own book. The one thing that bums me out about this otherwise charming volume is that Maru does not reveal any of the secrets to his popularity. I really wish he would — I am sure he would be a big hit on the internet marketing circuit.

Well if it makes you feel any better Sparkle, we don’t have a clue who Maru is. How could he possibly be more popular than you are. How silly is that??? We will have to check out the blog. Hope you have a great week end. Remember to be good, Santa is coming.

The Mom has been following Maru for years but since we don’t speak Japanese or understand it, we prefer to follow you, Sparkle! We love your stories and just love your disgruntled face! You are #1 in our book!

My Human LOVES Maru. She thinks maybe he is so popular because he seems so innocent of all the attention–he just does what he does–boxes, dangly things, the tub, that couch (!) — and his Human has not tarted him up with a bunch of crazy stuff–the videos are very simple and pure. Plus, he’s kind of an enigma, don’t you think? He’s not like us, always nattering on, ha ha meow!

we reviewed it too a few months back. I have to say that as much as I LOVE MARU I was puzzled as well. Then, I gave it some thought. We live in a “quick fix” society. Young people (sorry to stereotype) aren’t as in love with the written word as many who are older are. They come from the “quick fix” generation…they don’t want to read, they want photos…to me that explains why we can write our hearts out and get virtually no comments but we post a photo and the comments go through the roof. People want to “hit and run” on the Internet. They want a quick and cute fix………..Maru seems to satisfy that need!